Clark County – As of Monday, additional law enforcement officers are patrolling school zones around the county to look for speeding and distracted drivers ahead of the start of the school year.
The 2017-2018 academic year starts this week and next for schools around the county.
The Clark County Sheriff’s Office, the Washington State Patrol and Vancouver, Battle Ground, Ridgefield and Washougal police departments will have officers watching streets in school areas for about the next week.
The patrols are paid for through a grant from the Washington Traffic Safety Commission.
The Washington Traffic Safety Commission points to school zones as a confluence of some of its greatest risk factors for crashes: increased traffic, speeding and distracted driving.
The posted speed limit in school zones is 20 mph, and traffic research has found a child has an 80-90 percent chance of survival after being hit by a car traveling 20 mph. The same child pedestrian, according to the commission, would see their chances of surviving getting hit by a car drop to 10 percent were the vehicle traveling 5 to 10 mph faster.
